Reviews by captaincoffee:

I continue to love what Dogfish Head has done for the brewing industry...particularly their willingness to go beyond what is traditionally "sellable" and just try to make interesting beers. They are like the ultimate homebrewer with a big budget to try whatever hits their fancy. I also loved this beer when it first came out. Big and bold; sold in stores when the only beer you could get like this was at the brewery of some of the good microbrews. Pours amber with tight bubbled head that doesn't rise very high. (I'll skip the nose for now). Taste is bitter up front and is very well balanced by full malt backbone. Great mouthfeel and balance in this brew. It also finishes very well with lingering hops on the center of the tongue.I would have rated this beer much higher had I gotten around to writing a review years ago when I first tasted it. The problem with DFH90 is that other breweries caught up over the past few years and are not available in specialty/beer stored (Lagunitas comes to mind...I'm on the East coast). This beer simply doesn't carry the hop nose I personally feel is required to be in the top tier of imperial IPAs now available. Don't get me wrong...I like this beer very much. I just bought it today because I was on a business trip and this was available at the local Safeway supermarket. I simply caveat this review by saying I don't think this beer is still in the elite of top IIPAs in the country.

More User Reviews:

Appearance: With the massive amount of hops I expect nothing less than a superb lace and that is what I got. A solid ring after every sip ... amazing. Slightly hazed bronze gold color the haze is most likely from the hops.

Smell: Fresh hop aroma, very oily with herbal and piney notes. Ripe fruity esters and some sweet malt in the back.

Taste: This beer is so juicy, what a hop punch it has. Lots of bitterness and a ton of hop oil flavor from front to back. Very smooth with a thick malty body. Nice cake like maltiness in the middle with a ripe fruit and alcoholic kick in the end, finishes a little sweet with lingering bitter hop tones.

Notes: An exceptional example of an American Double IPA, no worries about getting my hop fix here.

Brightly polished tangerine-amber with honey colored accents, topped by a thick, creamy head of rich ivory that is tacky enough to stick around, seemingly indefinitely, and to leave an impressive lace legacy when it eventually departs.

Even though the brewery calls it an IPA, there's little doubt that 90 Minute is a DIPA and a good one. The nose is full of bright, brassy citric hops with a sweet caramel maltiness swirled into the mix. Specific fruits include orange, grapefruit and apricot.

This is definitely powerful stuff. Some breweries create DIPAs with a relative emphasis on malt so that there's as much caramel flavor as hoppiness. Others place a relative emphasis on hops in order to produce a tongue-shredding, bitter, explosive hop monster. This beer looks like the latter, but tastes like the former. Trouble is, I prefer the latter.

There's still a lot to like here. The flavor profile is an amalgam of melted caramel, fermented pine sap, concentrated essence of oily citrus peel and alcohol. The alcohol masking--like a few other DFH beers that I've had--is more like those small black 'eye masks' than a full-faced Godzilla mask. That is, it's not that hard to appreciate what's underneath.

Maybe this is an old bottle (although I don't believe that it is) and the hops have softened too much. Running it through Randall the Enamel Animal should fix it right up, but I don't have one handy at the moment. Dogfish Head 90 Minute IPA is still good-very good beer, but it doesn't quite crack my upper tier.

A bit hazy, golden / amber, and topped with a very creamy, enticing looking head. Retention is decent and clingy.

Aroma is full of spicy, floral, herbal, pine-like, pineapple, bready malt and estery characters. Nose is very intricate.

Smooth upfront, big and chewy in the mouthfeel with a creamy palate. Hops are BAM! in your face with prickly, bitter, herbal, pine, citrus rind, salt, slick viscid hop oils, raw leafy hops, earth, resin-like, hints of English cheddar and a touch of soap in a complex and intense medley of characters. Malts are a bit masked by this and take a backseat for most of the drive with some bready flavors and a lot of backseat driving as far as the mouthfeel goes. Alcohol is very present, with a warming feel in the head and fumes in the breath. Light notes of toasted malts / caramel as the beer warms. Dose of yeast in a drying finish.

This beer has really tightened up since its initial release ... of which I was not a fan of.

In the realm of Imperial / Double IPA's, 90 Minute IPA is King ... or at least one of the mighty Kings within its growing empire.

What's ther to say about this beer that hasn't already been said about Obama. It's empty promises and positive reviews don't give justice for the pure evil and harshness that is this beer. Imaging fermented raisens mixed with vodka. That's what this beer tastes like. The bitterness isn't bracing like a GOOD Ipa. Instead it cuts your taste buds open only to allow the horrible taste to hit you full swing. (like pouring lemon juice into an open wound).

I'm very thankful I bought one bottle of this for a little over $2. I was only able to stomach half before pouring the devil necter down the drain. As I watched it fall into the depths of hell, I noticed the dark color and thick consistency not unsimilar to that of a cough syrup. Truly symbolic for the evil that this over rated beer brings.

This used to be one of my go to beers when I first got into the craft beer scene. Now, I can't find myself finishing a whole glass. The color and smell is nice, but what I really can't get with is the huge malt presence. Not terrible, just not my type of DIPA.

Taste: sweet off the top with a cotton candy like fluffiness. orange peel and again, ripe aprcots. the sweetness maintains its staying power while giving way to some serious hop bitterness. the combine nicely and offer up a well balanced and big palate. both the fruity sweetness and hop bitterness linger nice and long and the maltiness is present too although hidden beneath it all.

Mouthfeel: some fuzziness to the mouthfeel. smoothes out mid sip and generally has a light to medium body character. very easy going down.

Drinkability: i feel like im not even getting the 9% abv here. The easy drinking combo of fruitiness and hop galore simply pleases my palate to no end. I feel like I could have 12 of these over a day. Simply a great IPA. Loved it.

Appearance  Nice, beautiful head that rose up nicely, went down slow, and laced the glass. The body is a lovely orange that screams, IPA.

Smell  What do we have here? Did I inadvertently find one of the big boys? This beer reeks of piney hops. We have a lot of evergreen trees in Washington State, and this smells like Ive rolled in the needles for a few hours. I mean, I cant even explain how strong and sharp this is.

Once you get past that, there are some other, softer, more floral hops and actually some sort of malt in there for balance. But, I think Im going to nickname this one, The Pine Tree.

Taste  Man, is this sharp. This is like IPA concentrate. Add 1 Tablespoon to 12 ounces of water and, Poof, youve got an IPA. This is extreme hops at their best. The super-strong hop flavors give this one yet another nickname: The Rind & Pine.

Interestingly, the malt balance is very clear. Its more of a grainy barley malt, but its there in force. This is amazing considering the preponderance of this ale to hops.

The taste of this ale will inevitably be compared to The Ruination, so lets get this out of the way. The Ruination is more refined. It is more balanced. It is more user-friendly. But, the 90 Minute IPA will stand your hair on ends. If the Ruination is the King, this is his crazy brother living in exile tenaciously dedicated to overthrowing the crown.

Mouthfeel  This DFH is medium to full bodied, lightly carbonated, very smooth, and has terrific balance.

Drinkability  This is a real treat. Drink it the way it is or age it for a few months to mellow out the hops.

Update  I first reviewed this a month after joining the site. It has become one of my regular buys but thought it would be fun to re-review it with an 04 vintage. I juggled a few of the scores around a bit but basically Id write the review the same way. This is one damn good ADIPA.

I did not care for the malt make up, nor the apricot smell and taste. I prefer a west coast style hoppy citrusy and bitter imperial. I have not been impressed with dogfish head, which isn't to say they're bad, just not for me.

I can't get this in Canada so when I was in Colorado I bought a 4 pack. I was eagerly awaiting to try it. I was disappointed. There is something in the taste that I did not like. Now, in fairness, it was the only bottled beer I drank while in Fort Collins for a week - but there was just something I didn't like compared to Odell's Myrcenary or Double Jack.

I'd never turn it down but I was disappointed. Maybe I built it up too much?

Bottle. Full disclosure: I am not an IPA fan, generally sticking with stouts, porters and some dark lagers. But there was a lone bottle in my local grocery store and I thought, why not. So, with that in mind... I started this around 56F. It poured an OMG beautiful golden amber, perhaps the prettiest beer I've seen. Nice whitish head that lasted long enough to appreciate. Smell was mostly citrus hops. Maybe some grapefruit, but definitely citrus. Aroma was the weakest link. Taste followed, but slightly out performed the aroma. Feel was medium body and quite creamy. In fact, there's many a stout that could take a lesson. I found myself wanting to really like this beer, but ultimately it is not my thing. My rating is probably unfair because I'm not into IPAs, but if you are, or want to try one, I heartily recommend this beer!

On tap in a glass, interesting mix of smells and flavors, but really does not have the traditional character of an IPA or DIPA. Mix of sweet malt and bitter hops with a grapefruit "pith" aftertaste - not a good flavor lingering at the end.

Appearance - pours a nice copper hue into the snifter the beer was served with. One finger head.

Smell - A bit sharp. Lots of hops and lots of malt on the nose. Not much citrus, but it's there.

Taste - Very malty and bitter, and an unfortunate amount of alcohol cuts through the taste. I caught slight notes of citrus and pine, but the malt overwhelms most other flavors. I'm surprised at how much alcohol I could taste, especially as I kept drinking. This is not what I would consider a well-balanced DIPA. If you're looking for fruit you'll be disappointed.

Mouth - Thick, syrupy and yet creamy. The carbonation is right, but it sticks to your mouth longer than I prefer.

Overall - This is the first 90 minute I've had in a long time, and in my opinion it does not compare favorably to the newer DIPAs on the market - especially if you prefer juicy, fruity, and fresh tasting IPAs like I do.